At an event held today in Sioux City, Iowa, Hillary Clinton outlined her plan to to help families who face Autism on a daily basis. The sweeping plan includes increasing screening, improving treatments, creating partnerships for employment opportunities, and committing additional research funding to better understand Autism. During the town hall, Clinton introduced her plan, then took questions from those in attendance. In addition to discussing her plan at the event in Sioux City, Clinton also released additional details on The Briefing. An outline of her plan is below.
- Screening and Awareness
- Boost early screening rates with a nationwide outreach campaign
- Promote multi-sector awareness campaign
- Autism Treatment and Insurance Coverage
- Improve access to autism services in the ACA marketplace and through private health insurance
- Increase state compliance with Medicaid coverage requirements for children with autism and other developmental disabilities and create an autism-service-access scorecard that makes state Medicaid compliance publicly accessible
- Work with the Department of Defense to ensure military families have full access to autism services through TRICARE
- Safety and Services for Children and Youth
- Enact the Keeping All Students Safe Act
- Protect children with autism from bullying in their classrooms
- Community Supports and Services for Individuals Transitioning into Adulthood
- Launch a new Autism Works Initiative consisting of a post-graduation transition plan for every student with autism aging out of school-based services and a public-private partnership with employers
- Combine the Autism Works Initiative with new legislation to fund employment demonstration grants for individuals with autism and other disabilities
- Increase housing opportunities for autistic youth and adults
- Caregiving
- Encourage all states to enact ABLE legislation and ensure consumer protection for ABLE account beneficiaries
- Provide new support to caregivers
- Research
- Significantly increase funding so that the government can invest more in autism research
- Call for the first-ever adult autism prevalence and needs study
- Enforcement
- Ensure states meet their obligations under IDEA’s Child Find Program to identify, screen, and refer children with disabilities for services
- Ensure access to assistive technologies
- Enforce mental health parity protections
- Continue vigorous enforcement of Olmstead
- Dedicate new funding to autism protection and advocacy
A video from the event is below.
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News Source: The Briefing, Time
Hillary Clinton Speeches 